


anything but hear a voice

by hepaticas



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Twins, F/M, M/M, literally how do i tag this?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-05
Updated: 2013-10-05
Packaged: 2017-12-28 11:43:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/991624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hepaticas/pseuds/hepaticas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eduardo and António are identical, but they are not the same. OR Eduardo has a twin brother and he hooks up with Mark. Originally posted on the kinkmeme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	anything but hear a voice

António and Eduardo are identical, but they are not at all the same. Eduardo thinks, sometimes, that the similarities are just an optical illusion – like those circles that look to be different sizes because of what’s surrounding them, but really they’re the same, except the reverse. He thinks that if they disassembled both of them and sorted them out into their various parts, laid the corresponding pieces side by side and catalogued them all, they would find that they were not identical at all, just bad caricatures of each other.

António is hard in all the places Eduardo is soft. He is cutting and unsympathetic, and he walks all over people, never the other way around. Eduardo works hard and sometimes he is afraid to do things that might make him happy; António takes what he wants and engineers situations where things work out in his favor with minimal effort. There are no laugh lines around António’s eyes, no freckles over the bridge of his nose, and there is a chip in his front tooth, almost invisible but enough that it keeps him from showing his teeth if he can avoid it. Eduardo has perfect teeth and too many freckles and lines around his eyes. There are similarities, too: the tip of their heads when they laugh, the way they both clench their jaw when they are stressed, or thinking. 

Eduardo knows these things about them, but most people do not notice them, because António and Eduardo are identical and if you look at them from a distance, you cannot tell them apart.

-

It’s the summer of 2000, and Eduardo is moving into a Harvard dorm with his twin brother. He does not know what strings his father pulled to get them in the same room when they did not sign up to be roommates and he does not want to know. 

“Remember when we had bunk beds?” António says, twisting around to look at Eduardo. He is walking a few feet ahead, carrying a duffel bag and pulling a suitcase behind him. He smiles with his lips pressed tightly together and raises one eyebrow. Eduardo cannot raise his eyebrows separately, only together. He wonders, distractedly, why António can.

“Yes,” Eduardo says, hitching his backpack up on his shoulder. “I remember.”

António winks at him. A girl carrying a box of books and walking in the opposite direction has to jump out of his way, because he’s not looking. She drops several of her books, but he doesn’t notice. “You always wanted the top bunk,” he says, “but mãe made you sleep on the bottom because she was afraid you would fall out.”

“She was afraid I would fall out because you pushed me once,” Eduardo reminds him. He stops to pick up one of the girl’s books. “Sorry,” he says, screwing up his face apologetically and then he has to sprint to catch up with António. 

“I did not push you, Edu,” António is saying. He’s turned back around now and is fiddling with his keycard. “Anyway, this is going to be just like that.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Eduardo says mildly and then laughs when António makes a wounded noise and elbows him in the ribs.

-

Eduardo meets Mark during his sophomore year, in the fall of 2001. He meets him through Dustin, who he meets in an Econ class. (Dustin also has a class with António and it is a full week before he believes that they are actually different people and Eduardo is not pulling an elaborate prank on him.) The first time they meet, Mark is about to get his ass kicked by a couple of upperclassmen and he only escapes because Dustin convinces Eduardo to help rescue him. In the end Eduardo marches up to the three of them and shouts, “Hey, asshole!” and then proceeds to lay into Mark for insulting his imaginary girlfriend before dragging him outside and leaving the upperclassmen blinking after them. 

The whole thing takes five minutes, and Mark spends the whole time looking at him like he’s trying to remember when, exactly, he insulted him, and then Dustin appears, laughing, and Mark scowls and says, “I had it covered.”

“Sure you did,” Dustin says.

“You’re welcome,” Eduardo says.

Mark says, “I didn’t need your help,” and then he marches off through the snow. Dustin shrugs at Eduardo and the two of them follow him all the way back to Kirkland.

-

“I just don’t know what you’re doing, Eduardo,” his father says to him during the summer between his freshman and sophomore years. “You are wasting time. António has an internship already and you are what? You are at home, helping your mother cook.” 

Eduardo feels his face going red. He carefully sets down the rolling pin he was using to roll out pie dough and dusts flour off his hands. “António has an internship because you found him one, pai,” he says calmly, ignoring the warning look his mother shoots him.

His father’s face crinkles up in annoyance. “I mentioned both of you to my contacts,” he says. “Why do you think they chose your brother and not you? António has made contacts, created a reputation! You have done nothing but join the Jewish fraternity. I expect better, Eduardo. You know that.”

He hears his mother pick up the rolling pin behind him and take over where he left off. “I joined the Investment Association, too,” he says quietly. “Not just AEPi.”

“Speak up,” his father says. “I can’t hear you when you mumble.”

Eduardo feels very small. He imagines his father saying, _António never mumbles,_ and he wishes that he and his brother weren’t twins, because maybe then his father wouldn’t feel like he had to compare them all the time. We are not the same person, he wants to say. We have the same face, but I am not him.

Instead he says, “I know, pai. I’m sorry. I’ll do better next year.”

His mother touches his elbow with the tips of her fingers. He ignores her and goes upstairs to his room.

-

They celebrate their twentieth birthday in Miami. They go to a club together, one that António likes and Eduardo is mostly indifferent to. They wear matching outfits, as a joke, mostly, because their mother used to dress them up in coordinated outfits on their birthdays when they were small, but also because when they’re getting dressed António winks at Eduardo from where he’s sitting on his desk and says, “Twins are hot; we should milk it.” Eduardo stands next to António at the bar, sips a drink that he bought with a fake ID and feels too small for his own skin.

An hour into the night, a pretty girl is perched on the stool between them at the bar. António has got her full attention. He is smiling and leaning casually against the bar and she is holding the beer he bought her and watching him with wide eyes. On the other side of her, Eduardo is mimicking António’s position unconsciously, swirling his straw around in his drink. She glances back at him every once in a while with an expression that he doesn’t bother to interpret. 

“This is my brother, Eduardo,” António says eventually, nodding over at him. Eduardo’s eyes flick up from his drink, his eyebrows inch up slightly.

“Tozé,” he warns, but he smiles when the girl turns to look at him properly. 

“He’s shy,” António says when the girl turns to look at him again. Eduardo rolls his eyes.

The girl looks back and forth between the two of them. “My apartment is only a few blocks from here,” she says. “If… you want.”

It takes Eduardo a moment to realize she is inviting both of them.

-

Eduardo introduces António to Mark for the first time a couple of months after they meet. They go to a bar, someplace Dustin chose, because there’s a girl that works there that he really likes and he thinks that if he just shows up there enough she will start to like him, too. He’s not really planning on bringing António along, but when he stops in their dorm to drop off his things, António is lying on his bed, holding a novel upside down and looking bored.

“What are you doing tonight?” He wants to know and Eduardo knows the second he tells him that he is coming along, whether he likes it or not. They walk to the bar together and António looks him up and down and says, “We should have coordinated outfits again.” He winks when Eduardo looks over at him and Eduardo huffs out a laugh.

“Stop that,” he says lightly. “I really like him.” Like a correction, he adds, “Them.”

António looks at him sideways and says, “Oh?”

“Yes,” Eduardo says, ignoring the way his face has gone red, and then, because he knows António will just ignore the correction anyway, “Mark is my best friend.”

“I’m your best friend,” António says and Eduardo laughs, but when he looks over, there’s a challenge in his eyes.

“You don’t count,” Eduardo says, grinning at him. “I don’t even like you.”

At the bar, he watches Mark’s eyes narrow when António drops into the seat beside his, sandwiching him between the two of them, and feels inexplicably queasy.

-

The summer after sophomore year, António brings a girl home. Her name is Katie and Eduardo has never met her, but António is very earnest as he tells their parents that they are serious. Katie has long blonde hair and a pretty, round face and when their mother makes her dinner on the first day of her trip, she blushes and stutters, “Obrigada, Dona Carolina,” and their mother looks like she is going to melt.

She stays for a week, and after she leaves, their father looks up at Eduardo over breakfast and says, his tone accusatory, “Why haven’t you met a girl, Eduardo?”

“I’ve met lots of girls, pai,” Eduardo answers without looking up from his toast. António snorts.

“But you have not been seeing any of them,” his father says, “You have not brought any of them home.”

Eduardo shrugs.

“Don’t do that,” his father says. “It’s childish.”

“Sorry,” he says.

“You should meet a girl,” his father says with finality. “Someone like Katie.”

“Yes, pai,” Eduardo says. He looks up and António is smirking at him across the table as he pours sugar into his coffee.

-

Eduardo applies for a new roommate before junior year and ends up with a single instead. António looks hurt when he tells him. He sets down the book he’s holding and says, “Why would you do that?”

“I don’t know,” Eduardo says. “I wanted to.” He’s sitting on the sofa, a plate of left over veggie pasta balanced on his knee and he pushes at his food with his fork instead of meeting António’s eyes.

“You shouldn’t have,” António says. He sits up and plucks a piece of asparagus from Eduardo’s plate. “We share. That’s how it’s supposed to be.”

Eduardo watches him lick pasta sauce from his fingers. “Maybe I don’t want to share everything with you, Tozé,” he says.

António stares at him with narrowed eyes for a moment and then he says, “Fine,” and he gets up and leaves the room.

-

Mark starts dating a girl in 2003. Her name is Erica. They meet at a party and then get coffee and later Mark introduces her to Eduardo as his girlfriend. She’s nice and smart and when Mark says things she doesn’t like, she’s not afraid to tell him. Eduardo likes her, but he also hates her, and he’s not really sure why. He thinks about his father telling him he should meet a girl and he asks António if Katie has any friends.

António looks up at him with one eyebrow raised across the table they’re sharing in the library and says, “How should I know?” Eduardo frowns and António returns his gaze to his book as he says, “I’m going to the bar tonight, do you want to come? I could use a wingman.”

“You could use a twin-man,” Eduardo says dryly, but he agrees to go.

“Wear the gray shirt,” António says as he packs his books up to leave. Eduardo gives him a two-fingered salute, and later, when it is a freshman boy with dark eyes and spikey hair that António corners at the bar, he’s only mildly surprised.

-

They both get punched by the Phoenix. António smirks at him from across the room at the parties and quizzes him about Harvard trivia. Their father sends António a long email about how proud he is when he finds out. When Eduardo calls him to tell him he’s been punched, too, his father just says, ‘yes,’ and then expresses his doubt that he will make it any farther. Later, Mark will echo the sentiment, and it will sting just as much.

Erica dumps Mark and then Eduardo gives Mark a good amount of his money. He tells António about it and António says, “Pai isn’t going to like it.”

“Why wouldn’t he like it?” Eduardo says. “It’s a good idea.”

“Yes,” António says. “But that’s not why you’re doing it, is it, Edu?”

Eduardo scowls at him and doesn’t answer.

-

Eduardo starts dating Christy. He doesn’t bring her home, but he tells his parents about her, and his father seems pleased. They go out to dinner with António and Katie one night and afterwards António watches Christy walking in front of them and whistles. “We could have some fun with her,” he says, and Eduardo is suddenly angry.

“We’re not actually the same person,” he says. “We should keep some things separate.”

António looks at him sideways. His smile is wicked, but he doesn’t say anything, just shakes his head.  
-

Eduardo’s father gets him an internship that summer, instead of António, and Eduardo doesn’t even think about Facebook when he says yes. Mark is angry with him for it. He’s going to California for the summer, and he wanted Eduardo to come, too. He accuses Eduardo of not caring about Facebook and Eduardo sighs and shakes his head.

“You don’t understand,” he says mildly. “You’ve only got sisters.”

“What are you even talking about?” Mark says. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Nothing,” Eduardo says. “I’m going to New York. Drop it.”

-

He flies to Palo Alto for a visit and Mark forgets to pick him up at the airport. He’s been distant all summer, even after Eduardo quit his internship and started looking for advertisers for the site. He knows it’s not what Mark wants, but he thinks it’s right, and it’s his job, and even if Mark doesn’t like it, he thinks it should show that Mark was wrong, and he does care. But then Mark forgets to pick him up at the airport and Sean Parker answers the door and Dustin’s eyes get very big when he sees him and –

“Where’s Mark?” He says sharply, dropping his wet bag on the floor. No one answers. He heads towards the hallway. “Is he back here?” He asks.

“You don’t want to go back there,” Dustin says, but Eduardo ignores him in favor of marching down the hall, calling Mark’s name as he goes.

There is a quiet noise from behind the last door on the left and Eduardo throws it open only to freeze. Mark is lying in bed, naked and tangled up in sheets, and settled between his open legs is… Eduardo. Eduardo thinks, _I’ve had this dream before, but never like this,_ and then he blinks and realizes that it is not a dream and that is not him because it is António. 

António lifts his head, releases Mark’s dick from his mouth with a quiet pop. He meets Eduardo’s eyes and presses his lips together in a smile. “Hey, Edu,” he says. Beneath him, Mark’s eyes open and he blinks a few times and then suddenly his eyes go wide and he says,

“Wardo, what –“

“You were supposed to pick me up at the airport an hour ago,” Eduardo says dully and then he turns around and leaves, grabbing his bag from the floor as he goes.

-

He freezes the account, and Mark calls him and yells at him and then he says, “I need my CFO,” and Eduardo doesn’t know how to say no to him, so he goes. Back in Palo Alto, after he’s signed the papers, he says, “Remember the algorithm?”

“Yeah,” Mark says. “I remember the algorithm.” He pauses and then says, “Wardo, about your brother…”

“I don’t want to know,” Eduardo says, avoiding his gaze. “It doesn’t matter. It’s none of my business.”

“Okay,” Mark says, but he sounds disappointed.

-

“You threw a fit,” António says pleasantly, after Eduardo has been kicked out of his own company and threatened to punch Sean Parker in the face. “You threw a fit, like a big baby.”

“You’re an asshole,” Eduardo says. “You know that?”

António shrugs, smiles at him. “Wanna go get a drink?”

“No,” Eduardo says. “Get out of my hotel room.”

António leaves, but just before he shuts the door behind him, he says, “I want to be there when you tell pai,” and Eduardo buries his face in his pillow and groans.

-

Eduardo sits across a conference table from Mark and tells a group of strangers about Facebook. Mark stares at him and Eduardo stares back. He thinks, _António would be able to look at you without hurting,_ and he straightens his shoulders and tries not to feel like he isn’t filling up the space he occupies. His lawyer says, “Mr. Zuckerberg, could you please tell us about your relationship with my client’s twin brother, António Saverin?” and Mark’s brow furrows.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Mark says. Eduardo stares at his own reflection in the glass table and isn’t entirely sure who he’s looking at.

“Answer the question, please, Mr. Zuckerberg,” Gretchen says.

“I was fucking him,” Mark says and his lawyer makes a pained noise. Eduardo closes his eyes and tries not to think about anything at all.

Later, Eduardo looks at Mark across a different conference table as he’s asked to testify about Mark’s involvement with the Winklevii. He glances at the brothers, in their matching suits and different colored ties and he almost laughs as he says, “He doesn’t have a very good track record with twins.”

Someone at the table makes a choked noise and Eduardo avoids Mark’s gaze as best as he can, even when he somehow finds himself defending him.

-

“I expected better,” his father says over the phone.

“I know,” Eduardo says. “I’m sorry.”

-

Two years later, Mark sits down next to Eduardo at the bar of a conference and orders a red bull and vodka. António is there, too, somewhere, but Eduardo hasn’t seen him since they had breakfast together early in the morning, long before the event. Eduardo has gray hair near his temples and freckles on his nose and laugh lines around his eyes. He looks up at Mark and Mark looks back at him and he says, “Do you know which one I am?”

“Yes,” Mark says. “I always knew which one you were.”

Eduardo turns away, takes a sip of his drink.

“About your brother,” Mark says, and this time Eduardo doesn’t stop him. “You weren’t there. I wanted you to be. I’m sorry, Wardo.”

“I’m not him,” Eduardo says. “He’s not me.”

“I know,” Mark says. He touches Eduardo’s hand where it is cupping his drink on the bar. “You’re better.”

Eduardo smiles at their hands and feels too big for his skin.


End file.
